Now Miss Josephine knew as well as could be, that it was the fashion to feel dreadfully at sich times—to get up a caniption fit, or any how to give right up and set kivered all over with blushes; but the bit of cotton wool that she used always to put on her blushes with, was tucked away in the top of her stocking, and she couldn't get at it handy without being seen. So she puckered up her mouth and looked as if she had just lost her granny.
"Give me one word of hope, now du," sez the anxious 'pothecary, a squeezing the milliner's hand, mit and all, between both of his, and a twisting his head a one side, and a rolling up his eyes, like a hen that's jest done drinking.
"Oh dear suz, what can I answer?" sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a wriggling her shoulders and kivering up her face with one hand, "I never felt so in all my life—dear me."
"Don't spurn me away from these ere leetle feet—nobody will ever love you so agin," sez the anxious chap, and with that he struck his hand sort of fierce agin his heart, that was floundering away under his yaller vest like a duck in a mud-puddle.
"Git up—oh du," sez Miss Josephine, catching a sly peek at the 'pothecary, through her fingers.
"One word of hope," sez the chap, a giving his bosom another tarnal dig; "say that you will be mine."
"I'll think about it," sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a sighing through her fingers.
"Say that you will be mine, or I will die on this ere very spot, and be sent down to posterity a living monument of wimmen's hard-heartedness," sez the 'pothecary, a running his fingers through his hair, till it stuck up sort of wild every which way over his head. "Do you want to make this ere body a morter, and pound my loving heart to pieces with the pestle of delay? If not, speak and say that my love is returned."
"It is," said Miss Josephine Burgess, kinder faint from behind her hand.
"Angelic critter," sez the lovyer.